Energy storing bricks for stationary PEDOT supercapacitors

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17708-1
• Publication Date: 2020-08-11T16:07:29Z
• Authors: Hongmin Wang; Yifan Diao; Yang Lu; Haoru Yang; Qingjun Zhou; Kenneth Chrulski; Julio M. D’Arcy
• Keywords: Science; Q; 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 7. Clean energy; 01 natural sciences; Article; 0104 chemical sciences

Abstract Fired brick is a universal building material, produced by thousand-year-old technology, that throughout history has seldom served any other purpose. Here, we develop scalable, cost-effective and versatile chemical synthesis using fired to control oxidative radical polymerization deposition of nanofibrillar coating the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT). A brick’s open microstructure, mechanical robustness ~8 wt% α-Fe 2 O 3 content afford an ideal substrate for developing electrochemical PEDOT electrodes stationary supercapacitors readily stack into modules. Five-minute epoxy serves as waterproof case enabling operation our while submerged underwater gel electrolyte extends cycling stability 10,000 cycles with ~90% capacitance retention.